I'll play.
Theodore Kaczynski?
Now I have to go see if I am right. It's scary playing this game and
quite possibly making a fool of oneself.
On Apr 11, 2007, at 6:10 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
I am curious to know if anybody in Friam-land will recognize the
following passage. No Fair using google.
It is NOT from the Gettysburg Address.
"Our work is guided by the sense that we may be the last generation
in the experiment with living. But we are a minority--the vast
majority of our people regard the temporary equilibriums of our
society and world as eternally functional parts. In this is perhaps
the outstanding paradox; we ourselves are imbued with urgency, yet
the message of our society is that there is no viable alternative
to the present. Beneath the reassuring tones of the politicians,
beneath the common opinion that America will "muddle through,"
beneath the stagnation of those who have closed their minds to the
future, is the pervading feeling that there simply are no
alternatives, that our times have witnessed the exhaustion not only
of Utopias, but of any new departures as well. Feeling the press of
complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are fearful of the
thought that at any moment things might be thrust out of control.
They fear change itself, since change might smash whatever
invisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now. For most
Americans, all crusades are suspect, threatening. The fact that
each individual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common
reluctance to organize for change. The dominant institutions are
complex enough to blunt the minds of their potential critics, and
entrenched enough to swiftly dissipate or entirely repel the
energies of protest and reform, thus limiting human expectancies.
Then, too, we are a materially improved society, and by our own
improvements we seem to have weakened the case for further change."
Nicholas S. Thompson
Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
